The Answer for Every Generation

It's only right for me to obey God because it's for my survival and my good and the promise that He has for my life. Jonathan Evans cautions us to use our freedom of choice very carefully. To submit your life to anything else is only to become enslaved to something that ain't got nothing for you. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. A loving parent protects their children by establishing rules and boundaries. Well, in a special message today, Jonathan Evans points out that God does the same for us and that only in obedience to God's rules do we truly experience freedom.

Let's join him as he explains. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 20 says, When your sons ask you in time to come, saying, What do these testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean, which the Lord our God commanded you? Then you shall say to your son, We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand. Moreover, the Lord showed great distressing signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt and Pharaoh and all his household. He brought us out from there in order to bring us and to give us the land which he had sworn to our fathers. So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always and for our survival as it is today.

It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all the commandments before the Lord our God just as he has commanded us. I hope you all saw in those verses that they were rehearsing that they had seen him work. I don't know if you saw that already or not, but they were rehearsing.

Let me tell you what God did for me yesterday. But there was a question, and there was a question that was coming. It says, The sons will ask in the time to come.

You know what that means? That means there's a time that's coming that the sons will ask. There's a question that's coming. And the question that's coming to the people is simple. It says, What are the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded us?

What are the testimonies and the statutes and these judgments? Tell me what it means. They're not saying tell me what it says. I know what it says. I just read it. I want to know what it means.

What are the benefits and outcomes? Why is it necessary, these statutes and judgments? What they're talking about is the Ten Commandments.

Because the Ten Commandments, the Mosaic law, was the covenant that the people were living under at the time. And so the question that's coming is what does it mean to live under that rule? To say it like we say it at our church, what does it mean to live your life under the rule of God? What is the meaning of living your life under the rule of God?

What are the benefits and outcomes? Why is it necessary to live our lives under the rule of God? That is the question. Many of you have that question because you're living under the rule of God, kind of, but not all the way. Because you're still a little wishy-washy on whether or not it's necessary to live your life under the rule of God. You're okay with coming to church. You're okay that he saved you from sin. You're okay that now you know you're going to heaven. But while I live, why is it fully necessary for me to give my life totally to God?

What is the necessity of that? And then they begin to answer the question. And so I want to go through it again so you can see the answer.

But I just want to storyboard it for you now that you have the question. What you shall say is that we used to be slaves in Egypt. But God brought us out with a mighty hand. I mean, he showed us himself when he brought us out. He showed great signs against all of my bad situations and my sin and my past to get me out of that mess. And he brought me out in order to bring me in to the promise that he has for my life. So he commanded me to obey him for my good and my survival as it is right now. So it's only righteousness for me to obey God in everything that he's calling me to do.

Did that make sense? Are you all with me? No, not with me.

I'm going to say it backwards. It's only right for me to obey God. Because it's for my survival and my good and the promise that he has for my life.

I have seen him with my own two eyes. I used to be stuck in a slave in sin. But he brought me out of that in order to bring me in to where I'm currently standing so that I can continue to have good, I can continue to survive, and I can experience the fullness of the promise that he has for my life. Because I used to be a slave.

I know what slavery is. And you want to ask me what does it mean to live under the rule of God? I live under the rule of God because it's for my good and my survival. He has given me a promise. So I'm living under the rule of God because God is the one that should rule since he's the one who has the mighty hand to bring me into the promise that he has. He has your life.

What is the answer to the question? Simple. Submit your lives to God. Because God is the one who has your life.

To submit your life to anything else is only to become enslaved to something that ain't got nothing for you. And we spend our lives looking at the mighty hand of God for salvation but we'll leave his mighty hand to fix our own lives on earth. And he's saying here is the answer to the question and I don't care when the question comes. Because he said the time is coming that the question will be asked and no matter when the question comes, whether it's Old Testament or New Testament or what you feel like may be your testament, it's the same exact answer.

I don't care if you're a baby boomer, millennial, exennial, generation A, B, C, D, E, F, G, I don't care who you are, you better submit your life to God. Because God is the one who has it. God is the one who's holding it. God is the one who brought you out to bring you into something. God is the one who saved you. God is the one who made you. God is the one who put you two together in marriage.

God is the one who positioned you so there's nowhere else to go if you want to experience the freedom that he freed you for. You say well how do I get my marriage from a turbulent one year to a successful ten year? You have to both husband and wife submit yourselves to God. You say well I'm a wife and I'm submitting myself to God but my husband, he's gone rogue and he's not submitting himself to God so what do I do?

I say you better do what Priscilla did in war room and go to that prayer closet and pray for your husband while you continue to submit yourself to God. Therefore being a 1 Peter 3 woman leading by example because you can't change him with your mouth but you can be the woman that God has called you to be and be the wife that God has called you to be as unto him because you assume that the mighty hand that saved you is the same mighty hand that can heal his perspective. It still has everything to do with submitting to God. You say well that's old testament Jonathan you're talking to me about the mosaic law, you're talking to me about the covenant back then, no it's new testament. That's why James 1 22 says don't just be a hearer of the word, be a doer of the word lest you delude your life. That's why John chapter 8 verse 31 and 32 it simply says that if you abide in my word you are my disciples and if you abide in my word you will recognize that my word will set you free. It even talks to children in Ephesians 1 it says children obey your parents in the Lord, this is right honor your mother and father because this is the first commandment with a promise so that you may live long on the earth. Luke 11 28 says don't just hear my word, keep my word and you will be blessed. It says your good and your survival, that's in the old testament but let me tell you about Matthew chapter 7 where he talks about the man who built his house on the rock, the man who built his house on the sand. They both built something but when that storm came through only one stood. Why?

Because something was resting on the word. That's how you survive. It's a different testament and maybe a different half but trust me we're still playing the same exact game. It's through obedience.

What is the answer? Submit your lives to God. Because when you submit your life to God you get to have your life. And we're running around trying to figure it out with our own hands and our own two feet becoming more frustrated and becoming more bound. We're trying to get different avenues to try to figure this thing out and he's saying the question will be asked and some of us are asking this question, why is it necessary, this whole church thing, why is it necessary for me to give my life to God?

They tell you because it was the mighty hand of God that brought you out of sin and death. And it's the mighty hand of God that can give you the experience of the freedom that he freed you to experience. Do you know that you can be free to become a slave or you can decide to become a slave so that you can be free? See people are thinking that I want to be free. A definition of freedom is I want to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it. That's not a definition of freedom. That's a definition of freedom that's really just camouflaged as a reality of chaos.

We just introduced chaos to our life. That's not freedom at all. Because who the Son sets free is free indeed. It is for freedom that you have been set free. Galatians 5, 1. Never again return to the yoke of slavery. Say the verse backwards. That means that there is a yoke of slavery that you can return to even if you've been set free.

So you can be a free slave or you can be a slave that's free. We'll learn more about being free under God when we continue in just a moment. First though, I wanted to let you know that the message you're listening to today is the first in a new teaching series from Jonathan Evans, who serves in both the local church and the national ministry with his pastor, friend, and father, Dr. Tony Evans.

Dr. Evans will be returning to the broadcast at the conclusion of Jonathan's two-week series entitled Forever Starts Now. It's a collection of lessons that complement the central teaching of his brand new book, Your Time is Now. In it, Jonathan helps you explore your purpose to discover all God has in store for you.

If you feel like you've been relegated to the sidelines of life and are only watching others pursue their purpose, this book will help you get up off the bench so you can live out the full reason God has placed you here. Because this is such an important teaching, we want to give you both the book and all nine messages from the audio series as our gift when you make a financial contribution to keep the ministry of the alternative coming your way. To do that, just visit tonyevans.org, make a donation, and request your copy of Your Time is Now and Jonathan Evans Forever Starts Now audio collection, available on CD as well as digital download. Again, that's tonyevans.org or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222. Members of our resource team are there 24-7 to help you in person. That's 1-800-800-3222.

I'll have that contact information for you once again after part two of today's message and this. Now, more than ever, men must lead. Strip fear of its grip. Stop listening to the world's definition of strength. Discover where true greatness resides. In his much-anticipated sequel to the instant bestseller, Kingdom Man, Tony Evans' Kingdom Men Rising calls on men to break free from an apathetic faith, do more than just exist, influence those around you to live with the courage of a Kingdom Man. The measure of a man's mark is made through what he does. What are you going to do with the life given to you? Get the book, Kingdom Men Rising, and put in the work to find the tools you need to rise to the occasion as a Kingdom Man.

Find out more at tonyevans.org. What does it mean to live my life under the rule of God? What does it mean? It means you're good in your survival. It means your promise in your destiny. It means that you don't spend your life and waste your life.

It means that you get to experience what God has for you specifically since he knew you before he formed you in your mother's womb. The people started in Egypt, they were enslaved. That's where our story is, okay? They got freed by the mighty hand of God. They got to experience a promise. But then, by the time you get to Judges chapter 2 verse 10, there grew up a generation that did not know the Lord nor the work that he had done.

The work is important as it relates to knowing God. They didn't know the work that he had done. So by the time you get to the end of the book of Judges, the last verse 21-25, they begin to do whatever was right in their own eyes. So they forgot about the mighty hand of God. And they decided to do what was right in their own eyes. So by the time you get to 2 Kings 24-25, 2 Chronicles 9-1, Nebuchadnezzar and his boys showed up and raided southern Jerusalem. Now they took them back into captivity for 70 years. That's why when you read the book of Daniel, they're in captivity again when they had already been set free. Well then how did they end up in captivity when they had already been set free? They start doing what's right in their own eyes. And so God let Nebuchadnezzar and his goons show up and go ahead and raid them, tear down the temple and go ahead and take them so he could teach them another lesson of how it is when you go to yourself in order to get things done.

You end right back in captivity. Now you got to go hire Nehemiah and Ezra because now you got to go rebuild what God had already built. And we got people who are rebuilding their lives that God had already built because they went to their own eyes even though God had already set them free. That's the whole story. We got slavery, we got freedom, we got our own eyes, we're right back in slavery.

Now we got to go rebuild stuff. I'll be in counseling sessions invited. Counseling sessions with my dad just want to let you know I'm not sneaking in in your business. And I realized that my dad says the same thing every time.

In different ways but it's the same thing. They come in, different problems, different things they want to talk through. My dad assesses. He pulls out, he probes, he gets questions answered. Then he pulls out the area or areas that are not submitted to God. Then he puts scripture on those areas. And once those areas are pulled out, he shows the person that's telling them the problem. Then he shows how it's not submitted to God and we've gone to our own ideas and feelings and the situation has made us take a turn from all of these different things. And as they see that situation sitting out in front of them because he's explaining it and he's a good talker.

They start going, yep, I see it. He ain't even explained nothing yet. It's just I'm already with you. He says if you would go ahead, I know it's going to be hard because you feel like your hand is mightier than his hand. But if you would go ahead and submit this area of your life to God. Then you will allow God the freedom to show up for you. Now you may have to wait.

But at least you're waiting on a trustworthy hand. Matthew 11, come to me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Who gives rest?

You don't. So in order to get rest, you have to come to him. Submit our lives to God. Because God has your life. To submit your life to anything else is only to become enslaved to something that has nothing for you.

Submit your lives to God. My daughter Kelsey, when she was younger, 22 months, 24 months, something like that and she wasn't really talking very well. We taught her sign language. And so she would tell us more when she was hungry and we would get her something to eat. Well she recognized that the refrigerator was where the food came from. So she got smart. Originally she would come to us and say more and we would get her food. But now she's like oh that's where the food is. So now she stood in front of the refrigerator.

She's standing in front of the refrigerator. More, more. I mean shouting at the refrigerator.

Refrigerator not budging. More, more. So I saw her doing that. I took notice. And I went over and I picked her up to take her over to her baby chair to prepare her for what she was asking for. But all she knew is that she was getting further from the food. So she started throwing a fit. You know the two year old fits.

They just lay out so you can't really hold them well. And so I was taking her to her chair but she was throwing a fit. I mean she was throwing a fit and all I was trying to do was prepare her for what she was asking for. And so you know how I parent. I sat her back in front of the refrigerator and I went and sat down and started watching TV. I'm going to let you have what you want. That's what you want. And she was calm. And I'm just zoned out.

Just NBA playoffs. After a while of living in that bondage. Starving. She decided to renew her relationship with the person. She came on right back around that corner. Oh now you want me. Now I'm available to you.

Now I can do something for you. I picked her up. She was fully submitted. She didn't have no problem.

She didn't throw no fits. She rested in her daddy's arms. I put her in the chair. I put the baby seat on. I put the table on. I went and fixed her food. I warmed it up.

I put it in its sections. I came and gave her her little baby spoon. Her little plate.

And she said, Yay! Too many of us are standing in front of the refrigerator of life. And it ain't doing nothing for you. And God is trying to give you the help that you need in order for you to eat the meal that you want to eat. But we're saying, I don't want to do it that way.

And he's saying, okay well go ahead and have it your way. But eventually after living in Egypt that long. After being with Pharaoh that long, you'll remember that it was the mighty hand of God that fed you in the first place. And you're going to renew your relationship with the person.

And when you renew your relationship with the person, he will set you free. Jonathan Evans with some good news about God's faithfulness in our lives. And if you're still looking for a reason to trust God's providence, here's Dr. Evans to tell us why it's so important. The greatest need in all of our lives is for the forgiveness of sins.

And there's only one person who can do that. That's Jesus Christ. That's why He died on the cross and rose from the dead. And He offers forgiveness of sins. If you're carrying guilt for what you've done, fear for what you've done, Jesus Christ is right here, right now.

If you go to Him, confess your sinfulness to Him, and trust Him to forgive you, He will do it on the spot and also grant you eternal life. Find out more about what it means to start a personal relationship with God. Visit tonyevans.org and follow the link that simply says Jesus. You'll find everything you need, including a personal invitation from Dr. Evans and some free resources to get your new life started off right. While you're there, you can request a full-length copy of today's lesson from Jonathan Evans, which includes material we didn't have time to present on the air. Just look for the message titled, The Answer for Every Generation. You can also take advantage of that special offer I mentioned earlier, Jonathan's brand new book, Your Time is Now, along with all nine messages from his current series on CD and digital download. The name of the series is Forever Starts Now, and the book and series are yours as our thank you gift when you make a contribution to help keep this broadcast coming your way each day.

Again, this is a limited time offer, so don't put it off. Visit us today at tonyevans.org to get all the details. You can make your contribution and your request online at tonyevans.org, or call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members assist you.

That's 1-800-800-3222. From the ancient Greeks to Shakespeare to Mark Twain, it's been said that clothes make the man. Well, tomorrow we'll discover there's actually a biblical basis to that age-old cliché. And as I mentioned earlier, Dr. Tony Evans will be returning to the broadcast following our current two-week series from author and speaker Jonathan Evans. Right now, Jonathan's back with today's closing thought.

If there's anybody in the room today as I close who has been living under the bondage of self and who has not submitted themselves to the lordship of Jesus Christ, trust me when I tell you, don't miss your life. Finally, two-daddy would say, when I was younger, he caught me trying to go my own way. And he said, he said, boy, what are you doing?

That's how you talk. Boy, what are you doing? He said, I'm just, you know, I'm trying to figure this out. I'm trying to do football.

I'm trying to do my day. He said, you're done with football. You can't play no football no more. He said, you keep getting cut. You can't play no football. How are you going to think it's football when you've been on five teams in three years?

You can't play no ball. He said, you know your problem. You know why you're going back and forth and you're struggling and you're trying to figure this out. He said, because you're stuck trying to make your own way. He said, why would you try to make your own way when God has already made a way?

He said, man, you were Evan's boy. You ain't that dumb. You're trying to make your own way. The answer to the question is, why would you make your own way? You can't make your way. The mighty hand of God yesterday is the mighty hand of God for tomorrow and today. Trust the mighty hand of God who saved you on yesterday to help you live today and tomorrow. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.